What is this evil shit?
--- Michael Givel <mgivel at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=611#
>
> This cartoon has been doing the rounds. For example,
> here. Norman
> Finkelstein posts on his site here.
>
> The new commonsense is that Jews cry "Antisemitism!"
> in order to silence
> criticism of Israel. When you hear the term
> "antisemitism" look for a
> "Zionist" trying to cover or excuse or legitimise
> Israeli crimes.
>
> Except, of course, it isn't true. Nobody argues that
> criticizing Israel
> is antisemitic - that would be silly. So why the
> persistence of the idea
> that "antisemitism" is a tool that "Zionist" liars
> employ in their own
> interest?
>
> David Duke, former leader of the Klu Klux Klan, says
> the following:
>
> It is perfectly acceptable to criticize any nation
> on the earth for its
> errors and wrongs, but lo and behold, don't you dare
> criticize Israel;
> for if you do that, you will be accused of the most
> abominable sin in
> the modern world, the unforgivable sin of
> anti-Semitism!
>
> Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, says much the same
> thing:
>
> For far too long the accusation of anti-semitism has
> been used against
> anyone who is critical of the policies of the
> Israeli government, as I
> have been.
>
> Tam Dalyell agrees:
>
> The trouble is that anyone who dares criticise the
> Zionist operation is
> immediately labelled anti-Semitic
>
> "Criticism of Israel is not anti-semitism" insists
> Michael Neumann,
> philosophy professor at Trent university in Canada,
> while Norman
> Finkelstein, teacher of political theory at de Paul
> University, Chicago,
> writes that one central purpose of his new book is
> to expose the way
> that the charge of anti-semitism is misused to
> "delegitimise criticism"
> of the occupation.
>
> Gilad Atzmon, saxophonist and anti-Zionist says:
>
> Zionist lobbies present all critical views of Israel
> as a form of
> anti-semitism.
>
> Why are all these different individuals from
> entirely different
> political traditions raising precisely the same
> straw-man argument?
>
> The effect of this straw-man argument is to muddy
> the distinction
> between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy -
> which nobody serious,
> no Jewish communal organisation and no mainstream
> Israeli politician
> says is illegitimate - and the kind of demonisation,
> conspiracy
> theorising, blood libels, and misrepresentations
> that some argue do run
> the risk of building the ideological and emotional
> foundations for the
> emergence of an anti-semitic movement.
>
> To go back over the examples above.
>
> David Duke's interest in pretending that there is no
> difference between
> legitimate criticism and anti-semitism needs no
> explanation.
>
> Ken Livingstone, who seems to have acquired a habit
> of employing
> low-level racist abuse against Jews, certainly has a
> record of doing
> more than criticise Israeli policy. He condemns bus
> bombing in his own
> city but "understands" it and refuses to condemn it
> when it happens in
> Israel. He welcomes the anti-semitic Yusef al
> Qaradawi to City Hall as
> an honoured guest. Some may accuse Livingstone of
> anti-semitism, but it
> is not because he "criticises the policies of
> Israeli governments". It
> may be that the charge of anti-semitism against
> Livingstone is not
> proven. But it is clear that the charge is not
> levelled against him
> because of straightforward policy disagreements.
>
> Tam Dalyell accused the Blair government of being
> unduly influenced by a
> Jewish cabal that tricks the Blair government into
> following Jewish
> rather than British interest (whatever he might have
> thought "Jewish
> interest" was). Again, some may accuse Dalyell of
> anti-semitism as a
> result, but this is not because he has made measured
> and reasonable
> criticism of Israeli policy.
>
> Michael Neumann says the following, in the
> ever-so-radical
> Counterpunch:
>
> The progress of Arab antisemitism fits nicely with
> the progress of
> Jewish encroachment and Jewish atrocities. This is
> not to excuse genuine
> antisemitism; it is to trivialize it. It came to the
> Middle East with
> Zionism and it will abate when Zionism ceases to be
> an expansionist
> threat.
>
> This again, is something other than "criticism of
> Israeli policy".
>
> However we may judge Norman Finkelstein's work, the
> people who accuse
> him of anti-semitism are not doing so because he
> "criticises" the
> occupation. They do so because they think that his
> analysis that there
> is a "Holocaust industry" that is exploited by some
> to hide Israeli
> human rights abuses behind the smoke of Auschwitz
> and Treblinka is
> dangerous and offensive.
>
> Gilad Atzmon, the saxophonist - who has written "I
> would suggest that
> perhaps we should face it once and for all: the Jews
> were responsible
> for the killing of Jesus" - risks muddying the
> distinction between
> criticism of Israeli policy on the one hand and the
> demoniation of Jews
> on the other.
>
> I am not arguing that all of the above are
> anti-semites. I am arguing
> that the fact that they raise the straw-man argument
> - "the Zionists
> call me an anti-semite because I criticise Israeli
> policy" - should ring
> an alarm bell for anyone that hears them do it.
>
> Mainstream Israeli politicians and Jewish communal
> leaders may be
> "Zionists" (whatever that term may mean); some (but
> certainly not all)
> may be right wing nationalists; some (but not all)
> may be tainted by
> anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. But they are not
> idiots. They do not
> claim that "any criticism of Israel is
> anti-semitic".
>
> David Hirsh
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